Bush Ranked Worst President In Modern Times-- But Will Obama Catch Up Soon?

Don't look for Bush or Obama here anytime soon-- and I won't look for a unicorn

A poll of 238 presidential scholars is different from a poll of a bunch of brainwashed Fox viewers and Limbaugh fans. It's also different from a consensus of DWT readers-- though not that different. George W. Bush, of course, ranks as the worst president in contemporary times-- but that could change.

For the fifth time since its inception in 1982, the Siena College Research Institute’s (SRI) Survey of U.S. Presidents finds that experts rank Franklin D. Roosevelt as the top all time chief executive. The 238 participating presidential scholars round out the top five in order with Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Teddy Roosevelt had, more than any other president the “right stuff,” and tops the collective ranking of a cluster of personal qualities including imagination, integrity, intelligence, luck, background, and being willing to take risks. Lincoln, according to the experts, demonstrated the greatest presidential abilities while FDR ranks first in overall accomplishments.

...The current president, Barack Obama, while highly rated on imagination (6th), communication ability (7th) and intelligence (8th) scores poorly on background (family, education and experience) and enters the survey in the 15th position. George W. Bush, had entered the survey at 23rd when the study was last conducted one year into his first term. Today, just one year after leaving office, the former president has found himself in the bottom five at 39th rated especially poorly in handling the economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments and intelligence. Rounding out the bottom five are four presidents that have held that dubious distinction each time the survey has been conducted: Andrew Johnson, James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, and Franklin Pierce. Andrew Johnson leads the ‘worst ever’ in both abilities and accomplishments finishing below both Buchanan and Harding, but Harding tops the worst in personal attributes including integrity where he finishes just slightly ahead of Richard M. Nixon.

So what about Obama-- worse than Bush? That'll be up to history, not us, and it's still too early to say. He could turn out to be as good as FDR. I'm betting, though, that it's just as likely that my friend Cynthia will bring me a unicorn today as that happening. More likely, Obama's austerity commission, stacked (by him) with men and women fully committed to keeping taxes on the rich unfairly low, will give a lame duck Congress the opportunity to do what the ruling elite never accomplished with Bush-- the destruction of the program that has made FDR #1 forever: Social Security.

Yes, Obama inherited a horrible economic mess-- among other things-- from Bush and from almost 3 decades of conservative rule. It looks like people who voted for that Hope and Change thing are seeing little or either in his first year and a half in office-- nor many impulses in those directions. He seems as reliable a handmaiden of the ruling elite or Military Industrial Complex as the Bushes, Clinton, Reagan, etc. He didn't seem to have the instinct to really go in for the kinds of systemic changes needed to save the economy or even prevent a double-dip recession (or worse). And just like it took a Cold Warrior of Nixon's stature to "get away with" opening up to Communist China, after Bush's failure to gut Social Security and stamp in cement the right of the wealthiest to pay virtually no taxes, the ruling elite figures they need a "socialist" like Obama to do the job for them.

Like we mentioned the other day-- and despite desperate (or self-assured) pleas from plutocrats like Michael Bloomberg to not tax the rich-- the obvious first step towards solving the country's fiscal problems is not to tank the economy with more of the failed conservative nostrums that have brought it so far down and not to enforce some kind of godawful myths of austerity on the backs of productive working people, but to go back to the days when wealthy social parasites paid their fair share.

I have a modest proposal. How about if we hold off on all this stuff for a minute? Just stop everything for one minute here, and let's try something that makes sense. Everybody pays-- through withholding-- a small payroll tax (FICA) to fund Social Security, providing benefits for retirees, the disabled, and minor children of deceased workers. This is the major portion of income tax for most Americans-- like over 75% of us. But this tax is not paid on any income over $106,800 (gross) and not paid on any income from stocks or bonds. If someone makes $20,000,000 a year they pay the same percentage as someone who makes $20,000 a year: 6.2% on $106,800-- $6,621.60. If a more typical American family with two incomes-- a husband making $53,000 and a wife making $53,000, say-- they pay the same thing as the guy making $20,000,000 a year. If Rchie Rich were paying his fair share ($1,240,000) there would be no crisis, That's why rich people hire lobbyists and buy corrupt politicians-- whether we're talking about virtually the entire GOP, but especially the wheeler-dealers like John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Raul Ryan, and Joe Barton, or Democrats like Rahm Emanuel, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Blue Dogs and Steny Hoyer who operate just like them-- and whose careers they finance. Let's end the $106,800 cut off on taxes and let the wealthy pay their fair share, see if that works out and then talk about austerity and budget deficits after that.

I'm not buying into Bloomberg's-- or any other billionaire's-- line that the "first rule is don't tax the rich. And while Obama seems to be in sync with the worst of our political elite in their devotion to the real rulers of America-- the ones who finance the careers of politicians of both parties-- he is presiding over the disappearance of the safety net for regular Americans, you know, the one that has gotten FDR rated #1 forever.

In just one week and in just one state-- last week in Missouri-- more than 8,300 people fell through the unemployment insurance safety net.

Actually, their nets were removed.

The result: Those who have lost jobless benefits already are turning in greater numbers to food pantries and other emergency aid programs, both government and nonprofit.

"We're hearing from more people needing assistance," said Ron Howard, spokesman for the United Way of Greater Kansas City. "Our 2-1-1 call center is seeing an increase in calls, especially from first-time callers.

"Without a doubt, the loss of that unemployment check is a contributing factor."

Loss of jobs and jobless benefits also is contributing to a rise in applications for Social Security disability payments from unsuccessful job hunters.

That search for subsistence funds revved up last month after the U.S. Senate rejected a bill that would have included more than $35 billion to fund another extension of emergency unemployment assistance.

And then there's that Afghanistan thing, a war that Michael Steele stumbled into saying is a failed war of Obama's choosing. Watch the video; it's quite amazing. Does this sound like a Republican? "Well, if he's such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that's the one thing you don't do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan." It doesn't. In fact, it sounds like Jerry Nadler (D-NY):

“I don’t think that too many historians would disagree today that the war in Vietnam was a tragic mistake. It did not enhance the security of this country by one bit because it was based on a false premise.
 
“Afghanistan is the same. Every dollar we spend, every life we sacrifice there, is a tragic waste. It does not enhance the security of the United States, which should be our goal. We were attacked on 9/11 by Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda had bases in Afghanistan; it made sense to go in and destroy those bases, and we did.  We have every right, we have every duty to destroy bases that are being used to plot attacks on the United States. But the CIA tells us that there are fewer than one hundred Al Qaeda personnel now in all of Afghanistan-- their bases are in Pakistan, but we are not invading Pakistan. They have bases in Somalia and Yemen, but we are not invading Somalia and Yemen.
 
“An intelligent policy might be to attack the bases from which mayhem is being plotted against the United States, wherever they are. An intelligent policy is not to try to remake a country that nobody since Genghis Khan has managed to conquer. What makes us think, what arrogance gives us the right to assume, that we can succeed where the Moguls, the British, the Soviets, failed? No government in Afghanistan, no government in Kabul, has ever been able to make its writ run and rule the country.  
 
“Why have we undertaken to invent a government that is not supported by the majority of the people, that is corrupt, and to impose it on the country? Afghanistan is in the middle of what is, at this point, a 35 year civil war. We have no business intervening in that civil war, we have no ability to win it for one side or the other, and we have no necessity to win it for one side or the other. This whole idea of counter-insurgency, that we are going to persuade the people left alive after our firepower is applied, to love the government that we like is absurd. 
 
“It will take tens of years, hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of American lives if it can be done at all, and we don’t need to do it. It’s their country. If they want to have a civil war, we can’t stop them. We can’t choose the rulers that they have, we don’t have to like the rulers that they have, we don’t have to like their choices. It’s not up to us. 
 
“Aside from making sure that specific bases are not being used against us, we should not be spending a nickel, we should not be wasting a life. And the lives that are being sacrificed in Afghanistan by our brave men and women are being wasted, because they are being spent in pursuit of an unintelligent, unthought-through, unachievable, and unnecessary goal. 
 
“At this point, we must recognize that rebuilding Afghanistan is both beyond our ability, and beyond our mandate to prevent terrorists from attacking the United States.
 
“To continue so bad a policy at so high a cost is quite simply unconscionable. It is unjustifiable to sacrifice more money and more lives this way, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.  Let’s bring our troops home.”

And, by the way, Cynthia came over and left-- no unicorn today. Now I'm leaving for the funeral of an old friend. I'm betting he's as likely to rise from his grave as Obama is to turn out to be anything more than as mediocre a president as the whole pathetic lot since Eisenhower and JFK.